drop: [OE] Drop, droop, and drip are closely related. Droop [13] was borrowed from Old Norse drūpa, which came from a Germanic base *drūp-. A variant of this, *drup-, produced Middle Danish drippe, the probable source of English drip [15], and a further variant, *drop-, lies behind Old English dropa, ancestor of modern English drop.
All three go back ultimately to a prehistoric Indo-European *dhreub-, source of Irish drucht ‘dew’. The English noun originally meant ‘globule of liquid’, and its related verb ‘fall in drops’. The main modern transitive sense, ‘allow to fall’, developed in the 14th century, giving English a single word for the concept of ‘letting fall’ not shared by, for example, French and German, which have to use phrases to express it: respectively, laisser tomber and fallen lassen. => drip, droop
Old English dropa "a drop of liquid," from Proto-Germanic *drupon (cognates: Old Saxon dropo, Old Norse dropi, Dutch drop, Old High German tropfo, German Tropfen (n.)), from PIE *dhreu-. Meaning "an act of dropping" is from 1630s; of immaterial things (prices, temperatures, etc.) from mid-19c. Meaning "lozenge, hard candy" is 1723. Meaning "secret place where things can be left illicitly and picked up later" is from 1931. Drop in the bucket (late 14c.) is from Isa. ix:15 [KJV]. At the drop of a hat "suddenly" is from 1854; drop-in "casual visit" is 1819; drop-kick is 1857. To get the drop on someone originally was Old West gunslinger slang (1869).
Old English dropian "to fall in drops" (see drop (n.)). Meaning "to fall vertically" is late 14c. Transitive sense "allow to fall" is mid-14c. Related: Dropped; dropping. Exclamation drop dead is from 1934; as an adjective meaning "stunning, excellent" it is first recorded 1970.
双语例句
1. Drop the dough onto a baking sheet with a teaspoon.
用茶匙把生面团舀到烤盘上。
来自柯林斯例句
2. I let the horse drop his head to crop the spring grass.
我让马低下头啃吃春天的青草。
来自柯林斯例句
3. Daddy called and asked me to drop by his office.
爸爸打来电话让我去他办公室一趟。
来自柯林斯例句
4. The drop in travel is bad news for the airline industry.
旅游热降温对航空业来说是个坏消息。
来自柯林斯例句
5. The drop was caused partly by the pound's strength against the dollar.
